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Punters now betting that Truss will be out next year – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,221
edited October 2022 in General
imagePunters now betting that Truss will be out next year – politicalbetting.com

After just three weeks and two days in the job punters are making a 2023 departure for her the favourite in the Liz Truss exit betting. In another betting market, it is now a 29.9% chance that Chancellor Kwarteng will be out this year.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Had a bad year for PM to go by x date bets. However let's not misunderestimate that there's two distinct mechanisms whereby she leaves early, either she is ousted by MPs or she calls an early GE as a last desperate way of fending them off. I had been saying she would not call a GE because that would be bonkers but it would be less bonkers than last Friday.
  • Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.
  • My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,686

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
  • rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,686

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    (FPT)

    Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Tres said:

    Find Out Now/Electoral Calculus poll for C4 News:

    45% Lab
    28% Con

    and also:
    14% Budget good idea

    Just announced by Gary Gibbon live on TV.

    Tory increased their share of vote in that one by 1%. Should steady the ship. Not a bad poll for them to be going up despite the media narrative as backdrop when is was taken.
    Are you being a Tory again? Your posts today have been bizarre
    I take polling posts seriously, I wouldn’t say anything deliberately untrue, though I could make a mistake.
    double check my checking if you like.

    Maybe a touch tongue in cheek, as that last poll I think was January. Though, on the other hand, it shows the firm does double digit leads and sub 30 Tories so are not a Kantor or Techne.

    My other posts today are not bizarre, they are actually true, cutting through the hyperbole on here today if you listen to what I am saying.

    What I am saying is really straightforward. The growth budget, with a couple of little ideological flourishes which have back fired, and the quarter of a trillion borrowing for Bill Freezing are actually two very different fiscal events, the chancellor has unwisely blurred together. The markets are not, IMF mostly not, attacking the growth budget - the growth budget isn’t a huge financial risk problem on its own. It is actually UK putting it out there we intend to borrow nearly a quarter of a trillion to freeze our consumers energy bills for a few years the markets are saying no to - the markets are saying no, we assess you are not in a great position to manage that size of largesse right now.

    So the answer is really straightforward as well, and it doesn’t need cuts or tax rises (though interest rates are touch low maybe, and a tax contribution such as a windfall element would sweeten the markets) we just don’t borrow £200B and give half of it to people who don’t even need a hand out. We adjust the Bill Freezing plan.

    Simples.

    Any questions?
    That's completely arse about face. The Chancellor promised growth with a range of measures that won't deliver growth. The energy stuff has been known about for weeks.
    To answer your question, because I know you will see the logic of my argument about what triggered the market so what needed to calm it - There’s an element I think where international economists like the IMF and the markets have not been doing their jobs properly by not reacting sooner to UKs unnecessary quarter trillion loan for hand outs madness. Was it the mourning period? The markets waiting on last Friday before acting, in hope of more detail and more reassurance, announce different things last Friday about size of borrowing and how it’s to be financed.

    The chancellor actually surprised them with more tax cuts, not the tax take they preferred; never a clever thing to surprise markets already volatile with unexpected bad news. That finally triggered it. But I am right, the elephant in the room is the quarter trillion loan for handouts markets acting on, the growth budget bits on their own the markets and IMF would not act like this.

    Time to acknowledge that elephant in the room.
    repeating the same point again and again and again doesn't make it any more correct
    What do you think triggered the markets then, if not how I just explained 🙂
    The Chancellor presented a set of figures that made no sense and sidelined the OBR. Then doubled down on the inanity of it over the weekend.
    I agree all those wrong vibes didn’t help him achieve the task in hand of not spooking the markets, yes you are correct listing those I agree are mistakes he made.

    But you appreciate those mistakes alone don’t trigger the market, for they are not the cause of the market concern? Is UK in position to borrow a quarter of a trillion for a regressive hand outs programme is the fundamental issue or question the markets have been wrestling with.

    Can you see that difference, between communication errors, and a fundamental issue the markets need us to address?
    We did this before, though.
    The ‘handout program’ is an emergency measure; if you’re going to cap energy prices, it’s the only way to do it within a reasonable timeframe (ie right now). Coupling it with a program of tax cuts - promising growth but providing no justification for that other than the bare assertion - is what made it fiscally incredible. Tacking a tax cut only for the wealthiest on top of that made it political suicide.

    “Regressive” is a red herring; you could address that through the tax system.
    The basic problem is that any energy price cap that’s effective would be very expensive.
    Now you could argue we shouldn’t have capped energy prices, but the economic fallout from that might well be equally severe.

    What no politician has really been honest about is how much the spike in energy prices has cost us. As I’ve said before, it’s made the country significantly poorer, and the argument is really about how that pain is shared out. That we don’t know how long it might last makes it harder still. A new government isn’t going to change that.

    If successive governments hadn’t put off decisions about nuclear and renewables for a decade or more while we relied on cheap imported gas, we’d be in a considerably better position.
    And if course those needed investment are going to cost a great deal more to finance, now.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    IshmaelZ said:

    Had a bad year for PM to go by x date bets. However let's not misunderestimate that there's two distinct mechanisms whereby she leaves early, either she is ousted by MPs or she calls an early GE as a last desperate way of fending them off. I had been saying she would not call a GE because that would be bonkers but it would be less bonkers than last Friday.

    What happens to the energy price caps if a snap general election is called; do they just go ahead ?
    Government has only just published the details of the business cap - does it require a vote in Parliament ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    Okay so the Bank of England only bought £1.025 billion in its QE bond buying operation. So it did not use the full £5 billion meaning the problem was smaller than it might have been,
    https://twitter.com/notayesmansecon/status/1575148896296357890

    Next time will be harder, or not ?
    The element of surprise is gone. On the other hard the expectation of intervention might calm things.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Had a bad year for PM to go by x date bets. However let's not misunderestimate that there's two distinct mechanisms whereby she leaves early, either she is ousted by MPs or she calls an early GE as a last desperate way of fending them off. I had been saying she would not call a GE because that would be bonkers but it would be less bonkers than last Friday.

    What happens to the energy price caps if a snap general election is called; do they just go ahead ?
    Government has only just published the details of the business cap - does it require a vote in Parliament ?
    I think yes and yes because they involve spending money

    I imagine they would be rushed through.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,482
    edited September 2022

    Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    LizT to sacrifice Kwasi in order to save herself seems plausible, and not unlike Theresa May being forced to ditch Nick and Fiona after the 2017 general election debacle. The government will no doubt be hoping it can at least get through the Conservative Party conference (starts Sunday; ends Wednesday).

    ETA yes, they are friends and political allies but even so...
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,841

    Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    The one conclusion that we must, sadly, draw is that this bunch of shysters are going to be squatting in Parliament until the last possible moment. They know that a great many of them are getting their P45s from the electorate and will wish to delay the inevitable for as long as possible: a January 2025 election would be no surprise at this juncture.

    In the meantime, they'll enrich themselves (and curry favour with prospective new employers in the casino banking industry) with further rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for with cutting or simply terminating a whole raft of services and benefits for everybody else. Larceny on a truly Olympian scale, allied to a deliberate scorched Earth policy designed to make Labour's task of sorting out their bloody mess as hard as possible.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    This hurricane is going to be very expensive to clear up after.

    I've been capturing video from this webcam in Fort Myers all day and I've put it into a Timelapse. Check out the storm surge rushing in! Crazy.
    https://twitter.com/WxBrenn/status/1575253395304288271
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,145
    pigeon said:

    Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    The one conclusion that we must, sadly, draw is that this bunch of shysters are going to be squatting in Parliament until the last possible moment. They know that a great many of them are getting their P45s from the electorate and will wish to delay the inevitable for as long as possible: a January 2025 election would be no surprise at this juncture.

    In the meantime, they'll enrich themselves (and curry favour with prospective new employers in the casino banking industry) with further rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for with cutting or simply terminating a whole raft of services and benefits for everybody else. Larceny on a truly Olympian scale, allied to a deliberate scorched Earth policy designed to make Labour's task of sorting out their bloody mess as hard as possible.
    Letting people keep more of their own money is somehow larceny?
  • Personally, I am looking forward to the result of the 8am radio round with PM. I wonder if any journos will have the nerve to put her on the spot and ask why rewarding the rich whilst penalising the poor is a good idea? Or wiping out the country's reputation?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    RIP Coolio.
  • Nigelb said:

    This hurricane is going to be very expensive to clear up after.

    I've been capturing video from this webcam in Fort Myers all day and I've put it into a Timelapse. Check out the storm surge rushing in! Crazy.
    https://twitter.com/WxBrenn/status/1575253395304288271

    A lot of water though not too deep and the trees seemed to hang on to their leaves, but obviously that is just one webcam.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    "This really is quite remarkable and suggests that last Friday’s so-called “budget” was perhaps a big mistake."

    Perhaps?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350

    Nigelb said:

    This hurricane is going to be very expensive to clear up after.

    I've been capturing video from this webcam in Fort Myers all day and I've put it into a Timelapse. Check out the storm surge rushing in! Crazy.
    https://twitter.com/WxBrenn/status/1575253395304288271

    A lot of water though not too deep and the trees seemed to hang on to their leaves, but obviously that is just one webcam.
    And it cut out after at the end of the video - about an hour and a half.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,755
    edited September 2022
    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.
  • moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    This was the lesson of Trump and then Johnson: people don't pivot or grow into roles.
  • Thousands complain to HMRC about tax repayments
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62939663

    The problem seems to be dodgy companies obtaining deeds of assignment, claiming tax refunds, and not passing them over.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,223
    I'm still curious as to how Labour view all of this. I keep coming back to The Simpsons...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbCsyjil4Y
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    I don't follow that. How is it in the government's favour that the pension funds came so close to disaster? Isn't the rational response to ensure that none of these clowns gets anywhere near the levers of power again?
  • LennonLennon Posts: 1,782

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Clearly that's pretty rubbish - I just wonder if the 'pension protector' bit basically involved a load of interest rate swaps which were trying to hedged against annuity rates. I've not checked, but logically the change in Gilt rates means that even with a pot 75% of what it was, the annuity (in cash terms) that you can buy with that smaller pot is probably not changed much from previously, which might well be the point of the 'pension protector' bit?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    There is a maxim that smart people can be made dumb and dangerous by ideology, and this potentially applies here.

    Truss always came across as a cartoon neoliberal airhead in the Cameron years. I thought that this type of politician had been consigned to history after Brexit. But I was wrong about that. They are back, in power but based on no mandate and very little support for their policies, and too afraid (or arrogant) to call an election, and determined to cause chaos and misery through 'shock therapy' designed to address the irresponsibility of err.. their own, previous policies.

    If they don't get rid of her, and they probably won't, this is potentially an extinction level event for the tories.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    IshmaelZ said:

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    This was the lesson of Trump and then Johnson: people don't pivot or grow into roles.
    Trump and Johnson could claim democratic mandates. Both are also smart in their own way, it is hard to deny that.
  • moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Mail will change its tune on the Government as soon as the economic situation touches pensions, which is what its readership base care about.
  • Lennon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Clearly that's pretty rubbish - I just wonder if the 'pension protector' bit basically involved a load of interest rate swaps which were trying to hedged against annuity rates. I've not checked, but logically the change in Gilt rates means that even with a pot 75% of what it was, the annuity (in cash terms) that you can buy with that smaller pot is probably not changed much from previously, which might well be the point of the 'pension protector' bit?
    It would seem odd to hedge against rates rising, and they could not fall much lower, but nothing would surprise me.

    Still, there are millions worse off than me.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085
    edited September 2022

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
    Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.

    Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.

    You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).

    The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    LizT to sacrifice Kwasi in order to save herself seems plausible, and not unlike Theresa May being forced to ditch Nick and Fiona after the 2017 general election debacle. The government will no doubt be hoping it can at least get through the Conservative Party conference (starts Sunday; ends Wednesday).

    ETA yes, they are friends and political allies but even so...
    I think most Tory MPs know Truss is a terrible mistake but she'll stay because (a) it's too soon (b) another contest would be too disruptive and take too long and (c) they wouldn't know who they'd get.

    I suspect they'd like to coronate Rishi or Wallace (which won't happen) but say they did you'd then have 50-60 kamikaze ex-Truss supporters on the backbenches sabotaging and scuppering anything the new new administration tried to do. And the majority in the House couldn't be guaranteed.

    The Conservative Party really are in terrible trouble and the best thing for them now would be a GE and to go into opposition. Even better, for the kamikazes to be deselected or lose their seats as I don't think there's any other way to be rid of them.
    Perhaps it will turn out that the tories and their membership finally did a Corbyn, albeit whilst in power, and causing vast damage.
    They've stopped being the party of common sense. It is all desperately sad.
  • sbjme19sbjme19 Posts: 194
    The Daily Fail is really beyond parody. To divert attention, it hopes, from the Government it supports being in trouble, its main headline is about a phone concealed in a killer's anus. At least this guy is safely locked up, there's quite a lot going on elsewhere.
  • moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Mail will change its tune on the Government as soon as the economic situation touches pensions, which is what its readership base care about.
    I see that all the front pages are concerned with pensions except the Mail. Obviously a bit of denial still happening!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-63069857
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,130
    Heathener said:

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
    Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.

    Now that the disaster of this stupidity (at the present time) is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.

    You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).

    The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
    The Mail and the Express are most egregious propaganda sheets, but that does not let the Telegraph or the Times of the hook. Less blatant but more insidious, their op-ed pieces are often as self serving as anything any of the other off-shore owned titles serve up. All in all, the feral British press has coarsened and cheapened the debate as well as injecting a personal viciousness that ensures that only the most thick skinned and thoughtless get to the top of the political greasy pole.

    There is good journalism in UK titles: the FT, The Economist and there are good journalists that write for bad titles, but the overall atmosphere stinks, and not just in the absurd and pathetic propaganda of the Mail and Express.
  • Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    LizT to sacrifice Kwasi in order to save herself seems plausible, and not unlike Theresa May being forced to ditch Nick and Fiona after the 2017 general election debacle. The government will no doubt be hoping it can at least get through the Conservative Party conference (starts Sunday; ends Wednesday).

    ETA yes, they are friends and political allies but even so...
    I think most Tory MPs know Truss is a terrible mistake but she'll stay because (a) it's too soon (b) another contest would be too disruptive and take too long and (c) they wouldn't know who they'd get.

    I suspect they'd like to coronate Rishi or Wallace (which won't happen) but say they did you'd then have 50-60 kamikaze ex-Truss supporters on the backbenches sabotaging and scuppering anything the new new administration tried to do. And the majority in the House couldn't be guaranteed.

    The Conservative Party really are in terrible trouble and the best thing for them now would be a GE and to go into opposition. Even better, for the kamikazes to be deselected or lose their seats as I don't think there's any other way to be rid of them.
    Turkeys don't vote for an early Christmas
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    edited September 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
  • Is Liz Truss the Tory Party's Corbyn? More of an activist than a politician, purely driven by ideology and someone who should never have been let near the levers of power?
  • Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    LizT to sacrifice Kwasi in order to save herself seems plausible, and not unlike Theresa May being forced to ditch Nick and Fiona after the 2017 general election debacle. The government will no doubt be hoping it can at least get through the Conservative Party conference (starts Sunday; ends Wednesday).

    ETA yes, they are friends and political allies but even so...
    I think most Tory MPs know Truss is a terrible mistake but she'll stay because (a) it's too soon (b) another contest would be too disruptive and take too long and (c) they wouldn't know who they'd get.

    I suspect they'd like to coronate Rishi or Wallace (which won't happen) but say they did you'd then have 50-60 kamikaze ex-Truss supporters on the backbenches sabotaging and scuppering anything the new new administration tried to do. And the majority in the House couldn't be guaranteed.

    The Conservative Party really are in terrible trouble and the best thing for them now would be a GE and to go into opposition. Even better, for the kamikazes to be deselected or lose their seats as I don't think there's any other way to be rid of them.
    Opposition might be the best thing for the party but for MPs, keeping their own seats will be of more immediate concern. They will be scouring opinion polls for hypothetical head-to-head scores.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,234
    https://twitter.com/mhmck/status/1575355642210131969?t=Qpw5Gi1X4CZhpet8fJL9bg&s=19

    Nice detail from the Ukrainian military's morning report:

    On September 26, the Russian invaders sent to Lyman a column of seven tanks crewed by newly-mobilized men. They had no training to learn how to drive tanks or fire their weapons. Two of the tanks were in road accidents.
  • Reading Alister Heath's ravings in the Telegraph this morning. He's also gone off a cliff. Arguing that high interest rates and a painful correction are good for us, blaming the left-wing establishment for the reaction to the budget, saying the IMF should be scrapped - and if not boycotted - saying it's aligned to the Joe Biden Left. Davos consensus gets a mention too. Andrew Bailey gets sledged.

    Utterly deranged.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
  • Sweden finds a fourth hole in the Nord Stream pipeline.

    https://twitter.com/welt/status/1575367053149708290
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Mail will change its tune on the Government as soon as the economic situation touches pensions, which is what its readership base care about.
    Someone suggested yesterday's events probably wouldn't make things much worse politically for the Tories.

    I think the near miss with pension funds will produce a chill in the hearts of many who didn't feel particularly vulnerable before - and a group who had been the Tories' core voters.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    There is a maxim that smart people can be made dumb and dangerous by ideology, and this potentially applies here.

    Truss always came across as a cartoon neoliberal airhead in the Cameron years. I thought that this type of politician had been consigned to history after Brexit. But I was wrong about that. They are back, in power but based on no mandate and very little support for their policies, and too afraid (or arrogant) to call an election, and determined to cause chaos and misery through 'shock therapy' designed to address the irresponsibility of err.. their own, previous policies.

    If they don't get rid of her, and they probably won't, this is potentially an extinction level event for the tories.
    The thing is this isn't even neoliberal ideology. It's not any ideology. Huge tax cut when you have inflation running away and interest rates are going to have to go up? What, no. If neoliberal ideology says anything about this situation, it would be to raise taxes a bit and cut spending a lot.

    There's no coherent *system* of thought that says you should do this. There's only a *habit* of thought, which is kind of, believe things that you want to be true, and ignore or fire any annoying expert who says it won't work.
    Yes but a lot of politics is pseudo religious like this. Maybe they thought they would cause chaos with the announcement and then 'slash the state' to get things in order?

    The problem though is that they have no democratic mandate, and any 'emergency' is one that it is absolutely clear to everyone that they have created themselves.

    My guess is that a large part of the electorate won't buy it, and won't vote Conservative ever again. The tories can just become a pensioners/nimby lobbying group.


  • Is Liz Truss the Tory Party's Corbyn? More of an activist than a politician, purely driven by ideology and someone who should never have been let near the levers of power?

    So this is what you'd think from the last 6 months, but I don't think you'd get it from her career? Truss was a Liberal Democrat then a Cameron-esque liberal conservative and a remainer until the day after the referendum. Contrast that with Corbyn, who doesn't seem to have changed his mind about anything since around 1972.
  • DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,841
    Foxy said:

    https://twitter.com/mhmck/status/1575355642210131969?t=Qpw5Gi1X4CZhpet8fJL9bg&s=19

    Nice detail from the Ukrainian military's morning report:

    On September 26, the Russian invaders sent to Lyman a column of seven tanks crewed by newly-mobilized men. They had no training to learn how to drive tanks or fire their weapons. Two of the tanks were in road accidents.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has literally became a road crash.

    That’s quite clever of them.

    I wonder how our favourite Nazi apologist would have explained that if he hadn’t got the ban hammer?
  • I can’t see Truss going this side of an election and there’ll be no election until 2024. But if I’m wrong, could the Tories manage to find anyone worse than her? Given their record over the last 12 years, you wouldn’t bet against it.
  • Tory MPs are notoriously reluctant to act as we saw with BJ.....it will take an `unknown unknown' event to dislodge her - my feeling is KK may go (or BoE Governor) in the short term and she may survive.

    LizT to sacrifice Kwasi in order to save herself seems plausible, and not unlike Theresa May being forced to ditch Nick and Fiona after the 2017 general election debacle. The government will no doubt be hoping it can at least get through the Conservative Party conference (starts Sunday; ends Wednesday).

    ETA yes, they are friends and political allies but even so...
    I think most Tory MPs know Truss is a terrible mistake but she'll stay because (a) it's too soon (b) another contest would be too disruptive and take too long and (c) they wouldn't know who they'd get.

    I suspect they'd like to coronate Rishi or Wallace (which won't happen) but say they did you'd then have 50-60 kamikaze ex-Truss supporters on the backbenches sabotaging and scuppering anything the new new administration tried to do. And the majority in the House couldn't be guaranteed.

    The Conservative Party really are in terrible trouble and the best thing for them now would be a GE and to go into opposition. Even better, for the kamikazes to be deselected or lose their seats as I don't think there's any other way to be rid of them.
    Turkeys don't vote for an early Christmas
    Chemo to save the patient.

    But, yes, it's easiest to do nothing. So that's what will probably happen.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,072

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    My Pots, I have three DC pots, are down around 11%.

    My SIPP with vanguard is down but by a smaller amount.

    How long have these LDI’s been around ?

    I have two DB pots, one in the PPF. I need to check the other one. The funding of which had been improving due to stock market returns and pensioners dying off. The company ceased trading over 20 years ago.
  • Is Liz Truss the Tory Party's Corbyn? More of an activist than a politician, purely driven by ideology and someone who should never have been let near the levers of power?

    Yes. But, she doesn't actively conspire against our defence,security or foreign policy interests so I'm clinging to that, at least.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,841

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    That’s crazy. What on earth were they investing in?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,841

    Is Liz Truss the Tory Party's Corbyn? More of an activist than a politician, purely driven by ideology and someone who should never have been let near the levers of power?

    Yes. But, she doesn't actively conspire against our defence,security or foreign policy interests so I'm clinging to that, at least.
    That we know of.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,072

    Given what we found out yesterday about the way UK pension funds have been leveraged, and their resulting vulnerabilities, I am not sure that the financial sector deregulation Truss and Kwarteng have promised - alongside limitless bankers’ bonuses - is a great idea.

    Pensions funds yet again. Since the Maxwell scandal there have been various efforts to improve regulation and reduce risk to them yet here we are again.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,690
    edited September 2022
    Heathener said:

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
    Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.

    Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.

    You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).

    The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
    Good morning

    The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time

    However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised

    Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget

    Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe

    The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades

    Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,234
    edited September 2022

    Cameron quits in disgrace. Tory MPs select May.

    Tory MPs quickly realise May was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove May.
    Tory MPs and then members select Boris.

    Within a few years Tory MPs realise Boris was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove Boris.

    Tory MPs choose Rishi but not decisively and members choose Truss. Within a few days of actual policies being enacted, Tory MPs realise Truss is a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies.

    There is a common thread. The problem isn't May. Or Johnson. Or Truss. The problem is the Conservative Party. It can no longer be trussted to chose leaders and thus Prime Ministers. Because time after time after time they select from their narrow pool and they chose mental.

    If there was ever a red flag that a party needed time out of office to rethink who it is and what it is supposed to be doing, it is this now.

    The problem with the Conservative Party is that it has been taken over by ideologues of both Libertarianism and Brexit, with no place for One Nation Conservatives.

    Truss ain't done yet. The next step is her "supply side reforms" which consist of ripping up environmental, social and planning protections to allow her rapacious spiv friends to externalise all the costs and consequences of their greed onto other people, while trousered the profits. She sees this as the solution to the countries problem.

    Shortly the Tories will be polling at Scottish levels in England too.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,223
    Did we forget to honour the 15 year anniversary of this on Sunday?

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase

    Not a lot has happened since that was written.
  • Given what we found out yesterday about the way UK pension funds have been leveraged, and their resulting vulnerabilities, I am not sure that the financial sector deregulation Truss and Kwarteng have promised - alongside limitless bankers’ bonuses - is a great idea.

    You could take the opposite lesson: too much regulation creates systemic risk because everyone uses the same safe strategies that turn out not to be safe.
  • I can’t see Truss going this side of an election and there’ll be no election until 2024. But if I’m wrong, could the Tories manage to find anyone worse than her? Given their record over the last 12 years, you wouldn’t bet against it.

    Ah, Damien McBride has turned up with his partisan attack lines this morning.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,234

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    Things will recover, so unless retiring soon best to hang on. My portfolio has taken a bit of a beating too, I am trying not to be tempted to overreact. They are sound companies with good long term prospects.
  • I can’t see Truss going this side of an election and there’ll be no election until 2024. But if I’m wrong, could the Tories manage to find anyone worse than her? Given their record over the last 12 years, you wouldn’t bet against it.

    Ah, Damien McBride has turned up with his partisan attack lines this morning.
    I’m afraid that the Conservative party deserves partisan attacks. It has made a complete mess of things. It watched the Labour party’s descent into intolerant, fact-free, exclusionary ideology and learned all the wrong lessons. The country is now paying the price.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    Anti-Kwasi briefings begin? Trussonomics booster @gerardlyons blames @KwasiKwarteng for failing to manage market expectations for #KamiKwasi budget.

    “It was necessary for the chancellor to keep financial markets on-side, and I warned about the need for him to do this.”
    https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1575364003731218432/photo/1
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    EXC: From the cabinet down there is private unease and anger about the £45 billion package of tax cuts, and the fall-out.

    One cabinet minister told me the government had got the timing and sequencing wrong by announcing it while inflation was so high


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cabinet-raises-doubts-as-calls-grow-for-u-turn-by-kwasi-kwarteng-w7k939283 https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1575373177114566656/photo/1
  • alex_ said:

    Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.

    Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
  • fox327fox327 Posts: 370

    Cameron quits in disgrace. Tory MPs select May.

    Tory MPs quickly realise May was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove May.
    Tory MPs and then members select Boris.

    Within a few years Tory MPs realise Boris was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove Boris.

    Tory MPs choose Rishi but not decisively and members choose Truss. Within a few days of actual policies being enacted, Tory MPs realise Truss is a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies.

    There is a common thread. The problem isn't May. Or Johnson. Or Truss. The problem is the Conservative Party. It can no longer be trussted to chose leaders and thus Prime Ministers. Because time after time after time they select from their narrow pool and they chose mental.

    If there was ever a red flag that a party needed time out of office to rethink who it is and what it is supposed to be doing, it is this now.

    Yes, you are right - the problem is the Conservative Party, of which I am a former member. However, now it seems that the Conservative Party has become an extremist party, and it is no longer a mainstream party of government.

    I hope that PR will be brought forward by the next government. Reform of the political system is required. I cannot see the circumstances in which I will vote Conservative again, because the Conservative party no longer believes in sound government.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,234

    Heathener said:

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
    Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.

    Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.

    You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).

    The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
    Good morning

    The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time

    However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised

    Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget

    Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe

    The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades

    Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
    The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.

    Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    edited September 2022
    The Trussterfuck is what happens when you think you are right and everybody else in the World is wrong.

    Like Brexit
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    One thing I don't understand is that pension funds are effectively forced to buy gilts as they are classed as the safest of assets, and are at the same time able to make leveraged investments which with the wrong combination of market conditions - as yesterday - render those investments as risky as any of their assets.
    I understand that's brought about by a systemic rather than individual fund problem, but even so...

  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,366
    Never trust an activist. They always know they're correct, so facts are irrelevant. That applies to the right and left, and particularly to the Greens.

    Nod wisely, murmur 'that's interesting,' but keep them away from the handles of power. Trump is an activist in his own way. So is Putin.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    tlg86 said:

    Did we forget to honour the 15 year anniversary of this on Sunday?

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase

    Not a lot has happened since that was written.

    He was just a bit ahead of his time, is now
    clear. 😏
  • Given what we found out yesterday about the way UK pension funds have been leveraged, and their resulting vulnerabilities, I am not sure that the financial sector deregulation Truss and Kwarteng have promised - alongside limitless bankers’ bonuses - is a great idea.

    You could take the opposite lesson: too much regulation creates systemic risk because everyone uses the same safe strategies that turn out not to be safe.
    I might buy that if the bonus cap wasn’t being lifted.

  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,994
    edited September 2022
    Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'

    In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,845
    edited September 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    The Trussterfuck is what happens when you think you are right and everybody else in the World is wrong.

    Like Brexit

    So you have had the trussterfuck then.
  • Foxy said:

    Heathener said:

    moonshine said:

    Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.

    Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.

    Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.

    I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.

    The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.

    It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
    Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.

    Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.

    You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).

    The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
    Good morning

    The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time

    However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised

    Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget

    Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe

    The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades

    Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
    The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.

    Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
    It is still part of the borrowed unfunded tax cuts and the narrative

    I think we all need to recognise that the next labour government will be having to increase taxes and cut public spending in something that will be very difficult for them
  • Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    Things will recover, so unless retiring soon best to hang on. My portfolio has taken a bit of a beating too, I am trying not to be tempted to overreact. They are sound companies with good long term prospects.
    Trouble is, first, I am de facto retired since redundancy, and more importantly, these are in supposedly safe investments like cash which might limit the chance of recovery. But yes, for the moment I'll leave it and hope the people who are paid to know about these things just had an off day, or year.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    alex_ said:

    Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.

    Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
    That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
  • darkage said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    This was the lesson of Trump and then Johnson: people don't pivot or grow into roles.
    Trump and Johnson could claim democratic mandates. Both are also smart in their own way, it is hard to deny that.
    Up to a point.
    Trump won the electoral college and that is still unfortunately how US presidents get elected. In the 21st century why not use the popular vote?
    Boris won a majority of Conservative members, as did Truss. Maybe time for the Tories to let leaders 'emerge' again?
  • Brazil are favourites to win the World Cup. Neymar, presumably their first choice striker, is generally 12/1 for the Golden Boot but 18/1 with Sky. That's more of an observation than a recommendation at the moment.
  • Its time to have another read about the Canadian Conservatives wipe-out. Such a total collapse is impossible in our system, but there is real and deep danger here for the Tories:

    1. Even if the Truss reforms work, they will be bloody and brutal whilst they process through. I'm not sure the election is far enough away to wash said blood off the pavement before they would need to start canvassing for votes on it.

    2. The two key takeouts the public have for this new version of the government is "unfair" and "incompetent". Working on the latter whilst delivering brutal and bloody reform is difficult.

    3. But their real problem is "unfair". It appears they have barely got started on the unfairness, with massive spending cuts to be announced as a nice Christmas present. That their spiv mates will be getting fat off the profits - and sneering ministers saying why that is a good thing - is not going to be popular.

    Much focus has been on "how do Labour win back those seats". But less on what feels like the more relevant question - "what if Tory voters disappear?"

    Clearly Starmer and Labour are a step too far for some voters - though that may ease over time. But if Tories just say "I can't vote for that" and their vote collapses, we will see all kinds of crazy results wiping their MPs out.

    Never say never in politics. Have we not learned that lesson repeatedly over the last decade?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,234

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    Things will recover, so unless retiring soon best to hang on. My portfolio has taken a bit of a beating too, I am trying not to be tempted to overreact. They are sound companies with good long term prospects.
    Trouble is, first, I am de facto retired since redundancy, and more importantly, these are in supposedly safe investments like cash which might limit the chance of recovery. But yes, for the moment I'll leave it and hope the people who are paid to know about these things just had an off day, or year.
    On the other had the Barber Boom was followed by one of the worst bear markets of modern times. What to do?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    I've decided to set myself up a pension company. I'll charge 0.1% on top of fund fees. I will just put all your money into a Vanguard Lifestrategy 80.

    Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
  • CD13 said:

    Never trust an activist. They always know they're correct, so facts are irrelevant. That applies to the right and left, and particularly to the Greens.

    Nod wisely, murmur 'that's interesting,' but keep them away from the handles of power. Trump is an activist in his own way. So is Putin.

    Though Truss wasn't that active a Lib Dem activist, if this titbit that a Sunday Times hack has unearthed is to be believed;



    https://twitter.com/joshglancy/status/1575181803115008000

    The thing to remember about Truss's Libdemmery is that she was a bonkers libertarian even then. Her views haven't really changed, she just chose a different vehicle.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,350
    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    My pension pot is down 25 per cent, or £40,000 this year, and that is before the price has been updated for yesterday. Damn.

    What the hell do you own? The weakness of Sterling should have been very much in your favor.
    It is a standard workplace pension run by a well-known firm whose fund managers no doubt went to the right schools. The fund is apparently split between "cash" and "pension protector" but they'd probably have done better buying National Lottery scratchcards.

    Incidentally, that fall is not from peak but from when they last sent a statement a few months ago, when it had already dropped £20,000 from the previous year.

    I wonder how many other people approaching retirement are sitting on less than they imagine, and how many young and low-paid people are doing their nuts in their new compulsory workplace pensions.

    Damn.
    Fuck me, you've been screwed. I'm so sorry.

    They should fire themselves for performing so poorly in Sterling terms.
    Agreed, My Standard Life pension pot is off 10% in the last few months which is bad enough. But the self employed are suffering a serious wealth raid here. With no guaranteed returns etc the benefits to funds of reduced liabilities do not apply so we get the downside but not the up. Annuity rates should slowly improve, at least in theory...

    The pension fund I am a trustee of has more than doubled its surplus on the back of improving gilt returns reducing our liabilities more rapidly than our assets. Although bad for everyone else this should have been a good news story for pension funds but the City came up with more "clever" financial engineering in the form of LDIs which caused yesterday's chaos.
    Just checked: mine lost another £5,000 yesterday.
    That’s crazy. What on earth were they investing in?
    Leveraged assets, via funds, apparently (or at least that's what caused the problems yesterday).
    They got margin calls, and the only way to find the ready cash to meet them was to sell some of their gilt holdings. As everyone was doing the same, and there were no buyers, prices
    crashed.
    Had the Bank not stepped in as the buyer of last resort, the downward spiral in gilt prices would have bankrupted several funds.
  • I can’t see Truss going this side of an election and there’ll be no election until 2024. But if I’m wrong, could the Tories manage to find anyone worse than her? Given their record over the last 12 years, you wouldn’t bet against it.

    Ah, Damien McBride has turned up with his partisan attack lines this morning.
    I’m afraid that the Conservative party deserves partisan attacks. It has made a complete mess of things. It watched the Labour party’s descent into intolerant, fact-free, exclusionary ideology and learned all the wrong lessons. The country is now paying the price.

    If you want to put off soft Tories switching to Labour then you go right ahead.

    Dipstick.
  • darkage said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Just to say I was totally and utterly wrong about Truss, I assumed she was just telling the members what they wanted to hear and she'd pivot when she got the job.

    My general mental model of British politicians is that they're smart people with good advice while the voters are less well informed and the media tries hard to make them dumber, and I *think* that's still mostly the right model, but whoa, it didn't work this time.

    This was the lesson of Trump and then Johnson: people don't pivot or grow into roles.
    Trump and Johnson could claim democratic mandates. Both are also smart in their own way, it is hard to deny that.
    Up to a point.
    Trump won the electoral college and that is still unfortunately how US presidents get elected. In the 21st century why not use the popular vote?
    Boris won a majority of Conservative members, as did Truss. Maybe time for the Tories to let leaders 'emerge' again?
    I've posted before my thesis that the self-styled "most sophisticated electorate in the world" always gets it wrong, including the first time when they elected Mrs Thatcher by mistake.

    The problem with Liz Truss is not that she does not have a personal mandate, as ours is not a presidential system, but that she seems intent on ripping up the 2019 manifesto on which she and the government were elected.
  • @darkage

    You are right. This could indeed be an extinction level event for the Conservative Party. Bets now boldly struck on a Labour Majority now may be looking distinctly overcautious by next week.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    A long-serving Conservative MP: “I can't make out if this is very clever or very stupid.”

    📻More of this on #TimesRadio from 10am

    @MattChorley Did you tell him?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,841
    Roger said:

    Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'

    In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake

    Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.

    That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Truss now 8 to go this year on Ladbrokes.

    On Saturday she was 41 (46 with boost).
  • @darkage

    You are right. This could indeed be an extinction level event for the Conservative Party. Bets now boldly struck on a Labour Majority now may be looking distinctly overcautious by next week.

    The final bit of the Canadian jigsaw is a competitor on the populist right getting traction. "Cut immigration- not the NHS", that sort of thing. Then the Conservatives really are in colourful simile territory.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Well, I think the question I asked back in the dim and distant past of August last year now looks like it has been answered.

    What absolute totally cretinous fools we all are

    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3540915/#Comment_3540915


    In my defence betting Con Most seats has been very much like owning Gilts.

This discussion has been closed.